But, oh, how I longed for him to magic up a test card and make this glitzy PR-driven borathon disappear.

So, why watch? My neighbour said, "Did you see Miriam on Saturday night? She was wonderful!" (She loves Miriam.

And Bertie. She keeps my spare key on a Fianna Fail key ring just to annoy me. ) So, I watched it on the web. I cringe at the surgical makeovers political journalists get for light entertainment. ("More blonde ringlets! STAT! More You-WillLike-Me Photoshoots! STAT!

More vox-pops about Miriam being a scrumpet! STAT!") The set has three sofas, candles, a coffee table and chandeliers. As the guests sat miles apart, it was more Abigail's Party than cosy chat show. Keith Barry said "f***" twice. The RTE website said: "This interview may contain strong language." May?

In this format, Miriam is an uneasy glamazon-journalistic hybrid. She fires zillions of rapid-fire ultra-soft questions.

It's like an interrogation by a litter of fluffy puppies who tickle the anecdotes out of you. She also uses the old journalistic barge pole to ask questions.

"There are some people who feel that your career may have stalled?" Some people. And, "A lot of performers wanna crack America. Is that what you want to do, Samantha?" We're not begrudgers . . . anymore. We clap at anything now. If Louis burps, there's a rumbling of applause.

Samantha met Louis aged 15 in Lillie's Bordello. "15?" Miriam asked. Samantha nodded.

"YEAY!" Miriam said. Oh, f***.

(To quote Keith Barry. ) I hope they don't drag that clip out for the next Prime Time teen special.

Larry King Live is tame enough, but comfortably moves between celebrity and political guests, though he sometimes makes them cry. CNN won the million dollar auction to interview Paris Hilton after 23 days in jail for driving on a suspended licence . . .

due to a previous DUI . . . though she insists her lawyer said she could drive for work purposes.

Her blue contacts gone, her eyes were natural brown . . . that's hot!

. . . signalling a serious side to the world's most famous blonde.

Why did she go to the MTV Awards the night she went to the slammer? "I was playing a trick on everyone. I slipped out, snuck into the prison and nobody saw me going in." (Her eviction, though, was better than Big Brother. ) She suffers from ADD, claustrophobia and said the biggest misconception about her is that she doesn't work. She read the bible in the clink, yet couldn't give her favourite passage.

Asked if she was given too much too soon, she spoke about life in L.A. Nice pass. (Terry Prone should use this in her communication classes. ) This was bland TV because Paris is too well-schooled and, though her ankle bracelet is gone, she has no identifiable chip f on her shoulder. Unlike the deliciously vengeful Diana and always suspicious Madonna. Paris said, "I had nightmares at night that someone would break into the cell and hurt me." She has dropped her toxic friends. "I don't have any friends in rehab, " she giggled, pointedly. That's Lindsay Lohan off her Christmas card list, then.

Gordon Brown? Now he has a chip, a big fat one. Jamie Campbell chased him for five weeks for Newsnight. Brown's head of security revealed, "It's hard enough for us to speak to him, he's just a fairly introverted sort of person."

Brown advisor Tony McElroy skulked about, hunched under the weight of the chip in his shoulder bag. Campbell offered to shake his hand. McElroy glared at it contemptuously.

Like Nick Broomfield's Tracking Down Maggie, Campbell proved interviewers can be affable and effective, even without an actual interview. "Gordon, please can you answer one of my questions?" he whined.

In the studio, Jeremy Paxman laughed his head off. Brown may wish he'd taken notes from his predecessor: smile broadly, wave like you're on your way to church and throw out a sound bite about, say, Iraq hundreds of thousands of lives later.

Reviewed
Saturday Night With Miriam RTE1
Larry King Live CNN
Newsnight BBC1